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Information

• Member: Otohiko
• Title: The Wasteland
• Premiered: 2004-02-12
• Categories:
  • Action
  • Other
  • Character Profile
  • Serious
  • Instrumental
• Song:
  • ProjeKct 3 Deception of the Thrush
• Anime:
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion (Death & Rebirth)
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion (End of Evangelion)
• Comments: *****
  
  Update November 2006 -
  The very last re-upload of the video, with my best-quality version still preserved, a 99mb XviD/DivX. The video was off for a few months, more or less accidentally. You may now see it again.
  
  *****
  
  Greetings.
  
  This is an experimental Eva video, set to a modern 3-part instrumental piece. It seems to tell a story; yet it's not about Eva's story quite completely, rather, it's about its' own story and Eva's artwork.
  
  If you find any Eva vid unoriginal, may I appeal to you with the fact that, for an Eva vid it's strangely devoid of Shinji being whiny and angsty, Asuka PMSing every few seconds, and even of the Evas themselves. Rather, it takes the artistic aspects which I believe have been somewhat neglected.
  
  This is a long video, clocking over 7 minutes in length. Be not afraid, however; the music piece, one of the most haunting I know of, consists of 3 very distinct parts, and the visual plays off the moods, images and landscapes in conjunction with the music, creating a lot of contrast; consequently, the vid seems shorter and I dare say is not repetitive at all.
  
  It follows through a concept; and, as a result, spoils a good deal of Eva's ending while completely re-telling the story; almost turning the sequence upside down.
  
  This is a video based on a piece of music which affected me personally; one I consider to be the one of the most unusual, powerful and mature pieces of modern music I've ever heard.
  
  This piece, Deception of the Thrush which was initially written by ProjeKct 2 in 1997 and performed also by ProjeKcts 3 and 4 through late 2003, has no stable version; no studio album version, only various live incarnations. Each of these is somewhat different and unique; I've heard over a dozen versions and witnessed one live. This one spoke powerfully to me, and, despite its' length and inherent unlikelihood to be made into a video, I took it and made an AMV out of it.
  
  Deception of the Trush is, in turn, based on the poem "The Wasteland" by T. S. Eliot, electronically-produced samples of which are tapped off a computer through a touch guitar at the judgement of the player in the early part of the piece; these create a haunting athmosphere. For a more detailed explaination of how Thrush is played by ProjeKct 3, see below.
  
  
  ****
  
  Final Edition Notes:
  
  -Overall improved video quality - at 15MB less of a size and improved codec compatibility!
  This is primarily due to the use of the superior 2-pass XviD/DivX encoder. If the relationship between the filesize, time length and resolution of the video seems odd to you, it's primarily because of how well the encoder deals with the mostly-static scenes in the early and late parts of the video.
  
  -Fixed fields/interlacing issues
  This improves the overall look of overlays and effects, especially later in the video.
  
  -Minor editing corrections
  So small, you probably won't see most of them. Most were in the later parts of the video.
  
  The rest of the video is basically there.
  
  This isn't actually the ultimate max-quality version of the video, as I have a ~100MB encode, but considering the fact that I'm willing to bet those who have seen that version (through the Instrumental Project FTP) will have a hard time telling this one from that one, I'd say the miniscule difference is not worth the 30 megs, and out of respect for both the .org and the viewer's bandwith I'll keep that one off local. If you happen to want it though, just get in touch with me and I'm sure we'll arrange something.
  
  ***
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ************
  I hadn't read 'The Wasteland' in a long time, and I'd forgotten much of the words. I made the video, and then looked them up, and I was struck by how much they resonated with the imagery I chose, particularly the paragraph from which most words used in 'Thrush are:
  
  
  ***
  
  The Wasteland - by T. S. Elliot (first part of 5)
  
  (words heard in the video are CAPITALIZED)
  
  I. The Burial of the Dead
  
  April is the cruelest month, breeding
  Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
  Memory and desire, stirring
  Dull roots with spring rain.
  Winter kept us warm, covering
  Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
  A little life with dried tubers.
  Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
  With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
  And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
  And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
  Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
  And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's,
  My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
  And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
  Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
  In the mountains, there you feel free.
  I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
  
  What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
  Out of this stony rubbish? SON OF MAN,
  YOU CANNOT SAY, OR GUESS, for you know only
  A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
  And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
  And the dry stone no sound of WATER. ONLY
  THERE IS SHADOW UNDER THIS RED ROCK,
  (Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
  And I will show you something different from either
  Your shadow at morning striding behind you
  Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
  I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
  Frisch weht der Wind
  Der Heimat zu
  Mein Irisch Kind
  Wo weilest du?
  'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
  'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
  -Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,
  Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
  Speak, and my eyes failed, I WAS NEITHER
  LIVING NOR DEAD, AND I KNEW NOTHING
  Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
  Oed' und leer das Meer.
  
  Madame Sosostris, FAMOUS CLAIRVOYANTE,
  HAD A BAD COLD, nevertheless
  Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
  With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
  Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
  (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
  Here is Belladonna, The Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations.
  Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
  And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
  Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
  Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
  The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
  I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
  Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
  Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
  One must be so careful these days.
  
  Unreal City,
  Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
  A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
  I had not thought death had undone so many.
  Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
  And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
  Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
  To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
  With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
  There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: 'Stetson!
  'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
  'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
  'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
  'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
  'O keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
  'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
  'You! Hypocrite lecteur! - mon semblable, - mon frère!'
  
  You can look up the rest on the internet if you wish (hah, I doubt anyone even read this far!); I think the other parts resonate just as loudly.
  
  ***
  
  Deception of the Thrush
  
  Conceptualized largely by ProjeKct 2 in 1997; yet never stopped evolving until the end.
  
  This version is from King Crimson's 'Eyes Wide Open' DVD, and was performed live in Tokyo's Kouseinenkin Kaikan on April 15th, 2003. The quality of the music and the richness of sound makes it hard to believe it's all live...
  
  If anyone is wondering why I put the artist as ProjeKct 3, when this version is from a King Crimson DVD, that's because it is. If you ask a purist, of course. To the layman, this is King Crimson for all purposes :)
  
  ProjeKct 3, however, is a very different band if you listen closely, and the roles of the musicians are different than within the KC quartet. It has performed separate concerts, and its' repertoire is exclusively experimental, often improvised music.
  
  ProjeKct 3:
  
  Trey Gunn - Warr Guitar and Talker
  Pat Mastelotto - Traps and Buttons (Acoustic and Electronic percussion)
  Robert Fripp - Guitar
  
  In the first part, Robert provides the backdrop soundscapes, the rich harmonical hum heard in the background, with his guitar the signal of which is fed through a series of synthesizers, effects, and a complex system of 4 digital loop-delay units. This creates an eerie sound that doesn't sound like guitar at all. This is Robert's unique specialty, and he's the only guitarist in the world actively using this technique. Pat handles the percussion throughout, using a mix of acoustic drums, digital effects pads, and percussive devices from loose cymbals to water bottles to rattles of various sorts. Trey has a very unique role here; he plays the Warr guitar, a 9- to 13-string guitar that can be played both as a normal instrument, but, more importantly - also as a touch instruments which requires only tapping to produce the sound, leaving both hands free to touch off notes.
  In the first part, Trey has the Warr guitar's input coming from his Mac laptop which is generating the sounds of 'The Wasteland'. When he chooses to, he taps or bends the strings, and the voice comes through, fed through a series of effects which enchance the otherwise dry artificial voice. It's interesting how he always seems to choose different words, and yet they connect; I think I've heard the entire first part of 'The Wasteland' if you put together all the versions of 'Thrush that I have.
  The silent break strikes me as the most effective part of the piece; and it's a shame I can't relate the effect that it had when I heard it live - the audience is at Trey's mercy and an intense silence builds; everyone seems to hold their breath. An awesome theatrical moment.
  
  In the middle part, Trey takes the role of the bassist, which the low-toned Warr guitar handles perfectly, and Robert soloes in his usual powerful yet subtle style.
  
  In the final part, Robert returns to soundscapes, while Trey takes the lead again, performing an incredibly emotional, bittersweet solo on his Warr; the sound is very unique - something between guitar and keyboard. In this particular version, he even uses another Warr guitar specifically for the solo, which is placed on a stand in front of him and, yep, he indeed plays it like a keyboard.
  
  The final solo is a big part of the reason why I chose this version of 'Thrush, since I find it the most powerful, and, it's also the longest. Which is OK. It leaves me more room to fill with images.
  
  
  Trey Gunn left King Crimson in late November 2003. The history of the Thrush has officially ended; but not before I had the chance to appreciate it live. Thanks Trey.
  
  ****
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The video took ~30 hours of editing; which had to be partially cut out from valuable homework, food and sleep time T_T.
  
  
  Tech info:
  
  Made using
  Space Groove Mark I:
  
  Athlon XP 2400+
  512MB 533MHz DDR RAM
  80GB HD
  GeForce FX5200
  
  Premiere 6.5
  
  Great thanks to cLess-R34 and Kenchi for help with beta-testing.
  
  And, thank you.
  
  
  ***
  Just the type of vid I expect to see from a pot-growing Canadian!
  -theocide